Black Philadelphians on Voting Today
Amid disillusionment and hope, Black Philadelphians share what voting means to them in 2025 — where pride, frustration, and persistence meet in the booth.
Aaron Brokenbough Jr.
Aaron Brokenbough is a Philly filmmaker, producer, and writer covering community, culture, and storytelling. He produces award-winning films and develops projects like Redefining Safety, highlighting Black, queer, and immigrant voices.
Artina Michelle: A Cinematographer Seeking Light For the Diaspora
“My mind works in light now. It goes beyond filmmaking for me. It’s a part of who I am.”
Read by 4th: Inside Philadelphia’s Movement to Close the Literacy Gap
Philadelphia’s literacy crisis has long mirrored the city’s broader educational inequities. With 60 percent of fourth graders reading below grade level, the challenge is both systemic and deeply entrenched. But amid these realities, a quiet but determined movement has taken root.
Marcellus Armstrong & the Architecture of Memory
“I don’t like to compromise on my crafts or gifts or creative interests,” he said. “I’ve always had specific interests and they’ve never necessarily met in the same room academically. So whether it’s video, sculpture, painting, or media, I like to think about them all through a lens of poetry and th
The Black Girl Lives On: How Horror Becomes a Portal for Diasporic Storytelling
“Horror allows us to reach into the unknown, to speak on things that often go unspoken,” said Eunice Levis. “For me, it’s about navigating liminal spaces, grief, displacement, magic, through a diasporic lens.”
What to Watch at BlackStar 2025: 4 Days of Films That Move Us
This year’s edition features 92 films across four jam-packed days, alongside a city-wide hum of panels, parties, and performances that reflect the urgency, intimacy, and brilliance of diasporic storytelling today.
Radical Futures and Ancestral Codes: Rashaad Newsome’s Assembly Reimagines Liberation
Assembly, by Rashaad Newsome and Johnny Symons, turns Park Avenue Armory into a speculative sanctuary for movement, memory, and Black queer freedom.
Deliberate by Design: Pablo Alarcón Jr. on Printmaking, Platform, and Finding Joy in the Process
Pablo Alarcón Jr. doesn’t believe in accidents. Whether he’s designing the visual identity for BlackStar Film Festival or experimenting with stone lithography, every choice from type scale to tonal contrast is made with care.
A Home, Not Just Housing: How Forget Me Knot is Transforming Youth Care in Philadelphia
Forget Me Knot Children & Youth Services is quietly reshaping the landscape of youth care in Philadelphia.
Tayarisha Poe: A Genre-Bending Dynamo of Independent Film
Tayarisha Poe doesn’t believe in genres. “I make movies in a tone,” she says, smiling. “I don’t make movies in a genre.”
Elijah Crawford Is Making Films That Don’t Care If You “Get It”—And That’s Exactly the Point
Philadelphia doesn’t need more perfect films. It needs real ones—and that’s exactly what Elijah Crawford is making.
Rasheed Ajamu Is Rewriting the Narrative of Germantown—One Post, One Story, One Neighbor at a Time
If you want to understand what’s happening in Germantown—not just what’s being built or debated, but what’s being remembered, grieved, celebrated, and imagined—you talk to Rasheed Ajamu.
Vernon Jordan III Is Reimagining Black Queer Cinema Through Love, Ghosts, and Lyricism
Vernon Jordan III—who also goes by Moonflower—doesn’t just make films. They build portals.
Robert Carter Is Centering Black Possibility—One Image at a Time
When Robert Carter picks up a camera, it’s not just to document—it’s to imagine. To expand. To conjure Black possibility into something tangible.